City needs $20M investment for road work, drainage in next five years

LACONIA — City councilors learned the city’s road program could use $21 million through 2029 to maintain the integrity of important thoroughfares and side streets. 

Nate Guerette, assistant public works director, told councilors at their meeting on Tuesday that a comprehensive study of the city’s roads showed many are in need of improvement and some are in need of major rehabilitation.

“Triggered by these projects, when you dig them up and open them up and have access to it, that’s the appropriate time to address utilities underneath. So we’ve captured quantities, costs for water, sewer and drainage as well,” Guerette said. 

In order to perform preventive maintenance on many of the city’s streets, $47.53 million is needed over the next 10 years. He submitted a $21.03 million bond request over five years, through 2029, and asked for the department of public works budget to be set at $2.1 million annually. Additionally, he asked councilors to fund the department’s storm drain program at $440,000 annually.

Collaborating with a company called BETA Group which uses computer software to judge the conditions of the city’s roads, which total about 80 miles and are mostly asphalt, the city tracked data and assigned each one a “road surface rating score” between 0 and 100. A score of 80 is the benchmark for maintenance, Guerette explained. BETA Group uses vehicles equipped with lidar to accurately map various aspects of the surface of the city’s roads.

“A few years ago, we, like many other municipalities, started using a software to help us identify and track [the condition] of our roadway,” Guerette said. 

The resulting report was comprehensive — totaling 38 pages of road ratings — and suggested about $47 million is needed over the next 10 years in order to achieve the benchmark rating of 80 on most of the city’s roads.

“The pricing does account for 3% inflation per year,” he said, noting the cost of engineering services typically ranges from 5% to 10% of the total value of the project.

“Maybe there’s some geotechnical analysis that’s to be done, some boring samples that need to be done,” Guerette said. “On a basic level, you’re looking at survey and making sure that everything’s going to flow where it needs to flow.”

Working with the water and sewer departments to comb over the extensive list of roads, public works staff are able to go through records to determine what features underground are still sound and which are not.

Guerette said sewer and water funds are enterprise funds, but drainage is not and would therefore be included in the total cost of the roads project. 

“There’s other triggers underground,” he said. 

Guerette, in asking for the city’s road budget to be increased north of $2 million, explained the budget for roads in 1994 was set at $1.4 million — equivalent to $2.97 million in 2024 dollars — and showed it has never exceeded $1.5 million annually since then. 

“What have we been funding the road program at annually, including drainage?” Mayor Andrew Hosmer asked. 

“The last couple of years for drainage we’ve been under $100,000 total,” City Manager Kirk Beattie said. “It’s been right around $1.5 million to give our average over the last few years.”

And Hosmer asked if the project would be bonded all at once or if it would be staggered.

“I think we’d probably break this down a little bit further than five and 10 years,” Beattie said. “We don’t have anything coming off the bond schedule the next couple of years, we’re in that window right now where we don’t have bonds coming to maturity.” 

City councilors could revisit these requests at a future meeting.